Kids Design Glass

About

Kids Design Glass

Kids Design Glass began as an education program at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington. Master glass artists from the museum’s Hot Shop selected drawings of mythical monsters by children in local schools and, with the children’s help, transformed the drawings into glass sculptures that combine youthful imagination with the pristine beauty of art glass. The success of the project led to a traveling exhibition of 52 glass sculptures, along with the original drawings that inspired them.

Kids Design Glass explores the creative process, from pure imagination to advanced technical skills. As Benjamin W. Cobb, one of the lead artists on the project, wrote in the exhibition catalog, “For the kids, it is several minutes of creativity and fun in the studio. For the glassblowers, the program means several hours of sweating it out in the Hot Shop, staying true to a design with unrealistic dimensions, unforgiving irregularities, and strange color combinations…we, the glassblowers, have to let go of everything we have learned about symmetry, form, color and perfection and embrace an artistry that colors outside the lines.”

To personalize the experience of presenting Kids Design Glass at the Figge, a drawing by a young artist (12 and under) from the Quad Cities will be selected by the Hot Shop artists from the Museum of Glass. The lucky child’s artwork will be translated into a glass sculpture. This process of creating the sculpture will be streamed live from the Hot Shop in Tacoma, Washington from 2-7 pm on March 30 in the Figge Art Museum auditorium. The contest will run from February 1-February 22.

Kids Design Glass is on view from January 18 through May 4, 2014.
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington.

Designed by Olivia Gamache (age 7) and made by Bee Kingdom and Museum of Glass Hot Shop Team, Flower Turtle, 2008, blown and hot-sculpted glass with applied bits.

Designed by Macay Fischer (age 8) and made by Museum of Glass Hot Shop Team, Banana Bam, 2007, blown and hot-sculpted glass with applied bits.